Under My Skin
by bethaboo
Summary: Bella and Edward meet and experience an instantaneous sexual attraction, but are forced to remain only friends for a year. When Bella and her boyfriend finally break up, they're finally free to act on their mutual lust. It's just sex . . .or is it? AH.


**AN: This one-shot was written as an entry into the Love Through Lemons contest, hosted by LolaShoes and tby789. I think I probably wrote 10 partial drafts, until I finally managed to come up with this final version. I won't lie; usually I think my stuff is pretty tame when I write it (I apparently have a terrible habit of underestimating the hotness factor in my own smut) but I will pretty much acknowledge that this one got under my OWN skin, towards the end.**

**FYI, the italicized sections are flashbacks.  
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**I hope you enjoy!**

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**BPOV

Everyone has that one person. The person that makes even the strongest fall to their knees, crawl over hot coals and beg without an ounce of pride. The one person that you'd pretty commit a major felony to hump, athletically and relentlessly, for one night only.

Mine was Edward Cullen.

And, now, after a year of overtly being friends and inwardly lusting after him, I was standing on his doorstep. Tonight, Edward and I were finally going to have our 'one night.'

I'd first seen him a year ago when he'd joined the firm, walking in like he could fucking buy and sell the whole world. I had a secret weakness for self-confidence bordering on cockiness and Edward Cullen was like my personal brand of crack.

As he walked down the aisle of cubicles, I'd watched him surreptitiously and tried to stem the tide of guilt that had washed over me. I'd been in a relationship then—a _happy _relationship, or so I'd thought at the time. Our eyes had locked for the briefest of moments, and for a split second, I'd wondered if he was as affected by me as I was by him. But he'd turned away, and I'd told myself that the flash of heat I'd felt was my imagination.

Clearly, considering the reason I was here, I'd been wrong.

Edward answered on my third knock.

"Bella." He sounded rather surprised to see me, and even more surprised as he took in my plain white tank top and black stretchy yoga pants. No doubt he'd been expecting something along the Victoria's Secret line.

"Sorry," I said, "no sexy negligee."

He opened the door so I could walk inside. I glanced up at his face, trying to read his expression. Was he happy? Upset? Inconvenienced?

I wasn't left waiting long for his reaction. The second the door shut with a decisive click behind me, he prowled close, then closer, leaning into me as my back bumped against the wood.

"Are you ready then, Bella?" he nearly growled, his green eyes glowing in the muted light of the entryway.

Was I ready? I felt like I'd spent the last year waiting for this moment. My stomach swirled with nervous anticipation, and I remembered the first time we'd ever spoken. It was a month to the day after he'd started at the firm. I was pitiful enough—and attracted enough—to be counting the days it took him to speak to me.

_I'd been in the tiny, cramped copyroom, wrestling with the scan feature that never worked the way it should, when he walked in. Any other man—no, any other employee—would have turned and politely waited in the hallway for me to finish. The room was just too small for two people to stand comfortably at a professional distance. However, Edward Cullen clearly didn't understand the concept of "professional distance."_

_He was already under my skin. His lips, his eyes, his fucking smell. I looked up, momentarily dazzled by his very presence, and I knew without a doubt that I was intoxicated by this unapologetically brash man. There were a lot of reasons that I should be committed for lusting after a co-worker with whom I'd never spoken, but was it craziest of all that it was his obnoxiousness that I found sexiest? I literally craved the hushed stories of all the ways Edward Cullen was shaking up the company. When our gossipy secretary told me he'd stood his ground against the CEO, I swore I felt faint with arousal. I hadn't been able to even meet those gorgeous green eyes of his for days._

_"Hello, you must be Bella." He said it so pointedly that I knew he'd cornered me on purpose. It was only then that I remembered that his office had a great view of the hallway outside the copyroom._

_I could almost handle him, if it wasn't for that fucking hot brash streak. That was slaying me._

_"And you're Edward." I stated, turning my attention back to the behemoth of a copier in front of me, but my heart wasn't in it._

_  
"Need some help?" He took a step forward, flashing me that paralyzing smile._

_I pushed a few random buttons, praying that it would miraculously start working._

_  
"Tell me something." It wasn't a question, but a demand. There was no doubt about it, this man was a taker. I felt a thrill somewhere a woman with a boyfriend had no business having thrills.  
"Why have you been avoiding me?"_

_While my decision to do so hadn't exactly been conscious—more the subconscious decision of a woman desperately trying not to maul a co-worker—I had never dreamed that he would notice. And if he noticed  
that meant. . . ._

_Well shit._

_"Self-preservation," I said honestly. The room felt at least fifteen degrees hotter than normal, and it wasn't because the copy machine was working overtime._

_"I find you incredibly intriguing."_

_"And isn't that too bad? I have a boyfriend."_

_Dismissing him as everything I wanted but couldn't have, I turned. It was bad enough that I wanted to fuck him fifty different ways. It was so much worse that the feeling was clearly mutual._

_He was so close now that I could only pick out portions of his face, each one of them perfect in their own right. The chiseled line of his jaw, with just a hint of bronze stubble. The crystal clear glass green eyes. His full sculptured lips. His presence fucking filled the room, like he owned it and everything in it—me included. He was truly larger than life. "Edward, we can't do this."_

_"I just want to talk to you." His voice came as close to begging as it probably ever had in his whole damn life. I wanted to sob with frustration. It was like tantalizing torture, being so close to him, but so far away. "Why can't we be friends?" he asked._

_I laughed, trying to break the unbearable tension in the tiny room. "You're joking, right?"_

_"Absolutely not. I wouldn't ever joke about this, Bella." His gaze pinned me to the wall and he took a step closer. One more of those and he would nearly be on top of me. As it was, I'd simply have to extend my hand forward and I'd be touching the crisp white starch of his cotton shirt—and the warm muscles beneath. I started to sweat._

_"Just talking," he pleaded in a low gravelly voice. "When you look at me . . .I . . ."_

_He didn't even have to finish the sentence. I knew a brief second of triumph at the realization that he was just as taken by me as I was by him. But my gloating had to be cut short, because well, no matter how much I wanted to fuck his brains out, I couldn't. I was a good girl now._

_"Just friends, that's all. There have to be boundaries."_

_"Scouts honor." He held up crossed fingers and grinned._

_I rolled my eyes. "You weren't a fucking boy scout."_

_"Oh, but I bet you were a girl scout and, God, I love a uniform. . ." he trailed off at my glare. "Sorry, I couldn't help it. I'm not used to friends that are girls. I suck at this."_

_"You really do." I took my frustration out on the copy machine by punching every button at least twice._

_Sensing he was being ignored, which he was, Edward directed his attention to the recalcitrant technology in front of me, but not before first getting in a good look at my ass._

_"I saw that," I announced._

_Edward rolled his eyes, and then squinted at the labels on the minuscule keypad. "And? You know that you've got an ass that makes me want to curl up and cry. It was all I could do not to grab it."_

_He might have been single-handedly setting women's lib back sixty years, but I couldn't deny that it was a turn-on. Any other body part and I might have considered filing a sexual harassment suit against him, but he had picked the one physical feature that I most prized._

_I was still contemplating how desperate I was for his big hand to actually do what he'd threatened when suddenly, the machine sucked up the paper sitting in the feeder and spat it out again._

_"Sent. You can thank me now." Edward's voice was unbearably smug._

_I crossed my arms over my chest and glared. "I would have worked it. . .eventually."_

_"It's that eventually part I'm looking forward to. . .someday." Edward gave me a final panty-dropping smile, and sauntered out of the room, leaving me feeling edgy and breathless and wanting so much more._

_Friends. We were going to be friends. I didn't see how that was going to work at all._

And really, as I stared at the man in front of me, I had to admit that I'd been right. We'd never been friends. Sure, we talked and laughed and ate countless lunches on the patio outside the cafeteria, but our friendship was just not platonic . It was a carefully choreographed mating dance full of innuendos, double meanings and plain, unfulfilled, garden-variety lust.

So when Edward Anthony Cullen asked me if I was ready to fulfill said lust, I could only nod helplessly as he finally, _finally _leaned in and kissed me for the first time. I'd spent a lot of time fantasizing about every facet of a possible encounter, and I'd logged quite a few hours on the first kiss. I'd instructed myself as I had driven over tonight that it couldn't possibly be as good as I was expecting. After all, nothing ever was.

I was right; it wasn't.

It was better.

Edward rested his hands on either side of my head, leaned down and finally detonated the bomb that had been lying dormant between us for a long fuckless year. His lips were hot on mine and the air around us nearly smelled scorched with the electricity pulsing through it. I arched into him, like a moth searching for a flame.

We kissed for what seemed like an eternity, over and over again like we couldn't bear to tear our lips apart now that they were finally joined. Edward's hard, muscled length pushed me up against the door as we devoured each other. My hands slipped down his back, memorizing the ridges and hollows that I'd observed so many times when I'd thought nobody was looking.

Our kiss became increasingly aggressive, our bodies melding and fusing together until I could nearly feel the imprint of his form on mine. We'd only discussed one night together, but already I was feeling intoxicated by the power I had over him, drunk on Edward after a year of abstaining.

My head hit the back of the door hard enough that, in a normal situation, I would have noticed the pain. Instead, all I could feel was spine-tingling pleasure as Edward continued to devastate my neck, until I was left gasping for breath.

"Edward," I moaned helplessly, "please _touch me_." All this time, his hands had remained firmly planted on either side of my head as he assaulted me with just his skillful mouth. But I wanted more. I _needed _more.

If I wanted to be honest with myself, my body craved more because I'd imagined his hands sliding over my bare skin more times than I cared to remember.

"Touch you?" he murmured into the damp skin of the crook of my neck. "Touch you?" he asked, punctuating the repeated question with a single swift nip to my earlobe. _"Touch you?"_

"Touch me," I moaned. "Please, for the love of God. I've waited long enough."

The exact words that Edward had said to me at lunch the other day: I've been waiting long enough.

_I'd been sitting alone on the patio at lunch, enjoying the warm spring weather. A shadow had crossed over my screen and I'd glanced up to see Edward standing there, hands jammed awkwardly in his pockets. I gave him a questioning glance, all the while wondering if I had ever even seen Edward look awkward._

_I hadn't. This was the very first time._

_He started in on his chosen topic with no preamble. "We've been friends for awhile now, Bella," he said, rushing his words a little so that I had to strain to keep up. "Well, not precisely friends . . .but you get my drift . . ." He paused, then continued. "Jessica told me that you and Jacob broke up a week ago."_

_I glanced up at him in surprise. I had instructed Jessica not to tell a soul—specifically hoping that she would not divulge the news to Edward. I had wanted to tell him in my own time, in my own way, and I hadn't quite decided yet how you informed the object of your sexual obsession that you were dying to fuck him and that now you could.  
_

"_Yes," I told him. "We broke up last week. He moved out." _

"_You didn't tell me." He sounded like a pouty little boy who'd been denied his favorite toy._

_I shrugged. "I wasn't sure how to . . .but I wanted to . . ."_

_A smile broke over Edward's face, bright and as blinding as the sun. "Well then, I'll do it for you. Whenever you're ready, some night when you're feeling lonely. . .come over, Bella."_

"_Come over?" I lifted an eyebrow._

"_I've been waiting long enough. But don't come until you're sure you can handle me." And with a final cocky smile, he sauntered off._

"Edward, I swear to God, if you don't touch me right now. . ."

He looked up, his lips leaving my skin for the first time in ten minutes. "A little impatient, are we?"

I was more than a little impatient; I was a lot impatient. Besides, Edward might think he was in control here, but I knew better. After all, I'd been waiting just as long as he had. So instead of passively waiting for Edward to finally touch me the way I needed to be touched, I touched him.

I trailed my fingertips lightly down his chest, barely feeling the brush of the cotton against his skin and mine. I knew I had him the moment I reached the hem and slipped my fingers underneath, teasingly toying with the taut muscles right above the waistband of his jeans. His jaw tightened, and I saw his eyes, following my every move, grow a shade darker.

I didn't even have to explore further to know just how much he wanted me. I could feel it in the way his arms clenched around me like bands of steel and in the way his held breath exhaled in a single, emphatic whoosh.

"Bella," he said warningly, and I knew I had to have more. I would break him, but I would enjoy every second of it. How many months had I sat by and watched him, memorized the way his muscles flexed under his starched white shirts and black trousers? I had been mesmerized just by the sight of them; I was enthralled by the feel of them under my hands.

I gave Edward a single unapologetic smirk and went straight for the . . .big gun. I could feel the hard length of his cock straining against his jeans, and I only had to make a whisper of movement over it for it to twitch. I'd known I'd held some form of sexual power over him, but the evidence was overwhelming now and, to be honest, it was an incredible turn on to know that my insatiable craving was mutual.

That was all it took—just the slightest brush of my fingertips of his cock, and he was putty in my hands. Or rather, I was putty in his, because it was in that second that the dam of his desperation broke. He pushed me back against the door, kissing me fiercely, his suddenly active hands cradling my face. I was just about to break away and gasp that I hadn't meant for his hands to touch me _there, _when they shifted lower, caressing the curves of my shoulders and torso. I shuddered tiny twitches of gratification, as his hands paused and hovered right above my breasts. Begging him with a frantic wild kiss to please, for the love of _God, _touch me, I almost considered whimpering to see if it would force him to move this evening along a little faster. I was all for foreplay and taking our time, but I felt like I was a nuclear bomb about to explode.

Still, Edward hesitated, tracing intricate patterns over the exposed skin of my collarbone, drifting lower much, much too slowly. I wrenched my mouth away from his, gasping with breathlessness and a bit of annoyance.

Of course, he had the nerve to smirk. Edward Cullen was the only man who could have me wound around him, against his front door, and dare to smirk at me.

"Why are you fucking around?"

He just shrugged, continuing his devastating fingertip caresses. "I've been waiting a long time to touch you. And your skin is so smooth, like vanilla ice cream."

"Thank you," I huffed, pretending that I hadn't felt the compliment tingling all the way to my toes. I'd have to be totally naïve not to know that he was the master of the charming pickup line, but right now, his eyes shone with absolute sincerity. In fact, I was having trouble not believing him.

"And, for your information," he leaned closer, brushing his lips against my neck, "I have every intention of fucking around."

The hot, smoldering look he shot me, full of naked promises, was enough to nearly turn my knees to jelly. There were no words needed; I tilted my head up and kissed him again and again, until the world had shrunk to just the two of us. I was barely even aware of the hard wood door at my back, wasn't even cognizant of my own actions—my body was driving now, desperately moving to the inevitable conclusion of me and Edward, naked and joined the way I'd been craving since I'd first seen him.

I could feel Edward's control begin to slip incrementally, and I strained toward him, my fingers tangling in his hair as I pushed us harder and faster and higher. Rubbing against him sinuously like a cat in heat, I could feel his cock grinding against my thigh.

He must have felt he was close to losing it, too, because right when I was sure I had him, my body screaming for completion, release, _something_, he pulled away. I floundered for a second, instantly feeling the loss of his body against mine. I looked up dazedly and saw absolute determination in his expression.

"Bella," he said, "I want you so God damn bad. . .but I can't take you here. . .against my front door."

"No?" I arched one eyebrow. "You want me to show you how?" I arched against him, twining my arms around his middle and pulling him in sharply towards me. He didn't struggle and submitted almost gratefully to my persuasive techniques, groaning as I planted kiss after kiss on his neck, then exclaiming when I nibbled a bit too ferociously.

One second my feet were firmly planted on the ground, the next they were not, and I felt my head swinging as Edward lifted me into his arms effortlessly. "If you're not going to play nice," he ground out in a rough voice, "you're going to get a timeout."

"Or spanked?" I teased, unable to keep the hopeful tone from my voice. I knew he'd picked up on it when one of his hands curled around my ass and gave me a playful swat.

We were walking up stairs, I thought, but I wasn't totally sure, because he started kissing me again, and the moment his lips touched mine, everything but his body and mine seemingly disappeared.

Just as suddenly as I'd become airborne, I dropped back down to earth—or rather I was dropped down onto a bed and then, before I could even push the hair totally out of my eyes, I was literally pounced on.

Edward wasted no time; he was on top of me in mere seconds, pushing me backwards up the bed as he blatantly slid his hands up my tank top. They were strong and warm and just a little rough and I shivered as they caressed the smooth skin of my stomach.

"You like that," Edward stated. I nodded, unable to bite back my smile. He was such a cocky son of a bitch, but it was such an integral part of his personality that it was hard to dislike. And who was I kidding? It was a total turn on.

"You're going to like this even more, I think," he murmured, leaning down just enough so that his lips barely brushed mine. I bucked up greedily, just as his hands closed over my breasts. I groaned into his open lips and tangled my legs around his ankles, trying to pull him towards me harder and closer.

His fingers were trailing devastating patterns of sensation across my nipples. I wanted to get closer to him—I _needed _to get closer. Even if I managed to slip under his skin, I knew I still wouldn't be satisfied. We were two halves of the same mold, and anything less than a perfect union was unacceptable.

Edward broke the kiss and my head dropped back onto the pillow. He was glorious, panting, his green eyes nearly black from arousal, as he wrenched the t-shirt from his body. I latched onto his bare skin like I was drowning, and in reality, I kind of was.

I drowned in the sensation of his skin on mine; I drowned as my fingers dug into the anything-but-dormant muscles that strained and stretched as he tried to control his desire.

"Wait," Edward ordered, his breaths coming in shallow, panting gasps as he leaned back on his heels. His eyes devoured me lying on the bed in front of him, limbs askance, hair spread out behind me, cheeks no doubt flushed and lips swollen and red. "I've pictured you like this, in my bed, a million times."

I couldn't help the deep sense of satisfaction that spread through me at his words or my answering smile. I'd thought about him, too, more times than I cared to remember. Every single one of those imagined fantasies had left me breathless and lightheaded with unfulfilled desire. But the man in front of me right now was real; he wasn't simply a figment of my imagination that would vanish the second I opened my eyes. I knew, with a deep sense of certainty, that I would _not _be left unsatisfied after this encounter.

"Just like this?" I asked, raising a single eyebrow and moving my hands to the hem of my tank, toying with the fabric with his fingers, which still lay hot and dormant against my skin.

He simply shook his head, his eyes never leaving mine. "Then tell me," I ordered. "How did you picture me?"

Edward didn't answer, he just relieved me of the grip I had on my tank top, and without a word slithered it up my torso, lifting it over my head in a single smooth motion. I lay before, him, feeling a bit like a mortal sacrifice to an extremely potent, extremely demanding, extremely_ hungry _god.

"Better?" I managed to ask, though the lust thrumming through me and soaking my panties seemed to have left me both breathless and speechless.

"No." Edward's brow furrowed with concentration. "Not quite."

I gave him a single hot look designed to inform him that he could do his worst and I wouldn't only not mind, I would enjoy every fucking moment of his designed torture.

He gripped the waistband of my pants and yanked them down, not very gently, but I didn't mind. His gaze instantly went to my black lace panties. "Sexy," he growled, running one fingertip over the openwork pattern of the lace. "But they would be sexier," he continued with a smirk and a glance sideways, "over there."

I thought about asking him if this was how he'd pictured me—totally naked in his bed—but then he stripped the panties off in one smooth motion that spoke volumes about how many pairs of those he'd decimated through the years. I opened my mouth to make a snide comment about how practiced the action was, but then his fingers were trailing through my damp slit, and I didn't care. I didn't care if there were a million other women that he had done this too, as right now, it was me on the receiving end.

"So wet, Bella," he murmured in that dark, seductive voice as he continued to tease me. "Just like I imagined you."

I took a shaky breath. " How else did you imagine me?"

"You're close," he growled, glancing down at me, and as he slid a finger inside me, I wondered if he knew how true his words were.

"What else?" I groaned as a second finger joined the first.

He leaned in, burying his face in the curve of my neck, his teeth nipping at the skin there. "This Bella," he said. "This." I writhed against the devastating pleasure of his fingers, and wondered what else he could have come up with to torture me.

I heard him fumbling for his pants, and I nearly gasped as I felt his fully naked form against mine. "Edward," I begged. "_Please_."

"This," he repeated, sliding his fingers out of me and trailing them wetly up the underside of my thigh, raising my leg as he went. "_This_." I barely felt the head of his cock at my entrance before I totally understood what was about to happen. I tried to take a deep relaxing breath to prepare myself, because I'd felt him and he was definitely a _big _guy. Ss he slid inside me, he stole the air from my lungs. I couldn't even breathe, and it was more than just his size. He fit inside me perfectly, like he'd been created to fill me and me only.

"Fuck." The word nearly tore out of Edward's throat, and I felt the vibrations of it in his chest as he paused. Every muscle in his back was strained and I wondered why he was holding back.

"Don't," I ordered him. "Just let go." Experimentally, I lifted my hips upward, willing him to move. I had been wrong. I thought I'd needed to get under his skin so I could be close enough, but this was exactly what I had needed.

With a final quiver, his control shattered, and he slammed into me, hard, and then we moved together, sweaty and uncontrolled as though we'd waited far too long for this moment and there was no finesse, no control, no holding back now that it was actually happening.

Pleasure spiraled out of control and as my fingers dug into his shoulders, I knew he was nearing the edge. I was so close and I arched up into him, needing just a little bit more of the drugging ecstasy to fall off with him. He groaned into my shoulder, the sound muffled by my hair and his teeth latched onto my skin, holding me as he poured himself into me. The sharp shot of pain was all it took to trigger my own orgasm and I hung on tight as I shuddered around him.

Edward collapsed onto me, panting hard, his skin damp with sweat. He said nothing. I held him as we came down together. I didn't know what to say either. I'd come here expecting sex, and I'd gotten it. Mindblowing sex that I couldn't have even imagined in my wildest dreams. And now what were we going to do? Go back to being friends? I supposed, as I lay there, that there could be worse things, but even as I tried to resign myself to the reality, a sharp painful honesty echoed through my heart.

_Edward and I were never meant to be just friends._

I opened my mouth to say something, _anything_, but he rolled off me, and I found myself staring at his back instead. I supposed that was my answer. We'd had great sex, but in the end, sex was only sex.

I raised myself on my elbows, pushing hair out of my eyes and began to look for my discarded clothes. I spotted my panties and I reached for them. That was the moment that Edward chose to turn, questions in his eyes.

"Where are you going?" he asked. His expression was totally devoid of emotion and I decided that I would make the break clean. No doubt his nightly parade of skanks clung and never knew when to leave.

"I'm going to go home," I said briskly, trying to exude a confidence and a sanity that I didn't feel right now.

I had just managed to slide my panties on over limp legs, when he laid a hand on my arm. "Bella, no."

"No?" I raised a questioning eyebrow.

Edward sighed. "What I mean is: 'Bella, please, _please _don't go.'"

I stared at him, wondering if he was truly saying what I thought he was. Was he?

Looking closer, I was shocked to discover that his eyes were pleading with me. It was unmistakable, and I wondered how I'd missed it.

I couldn't help the blinding smile erupting out of the warm glow inside me. "Okay, if you insist."


End file.
